Interviews

Urban Grind

From fashion mogul (Ecko Unlimited, G-Unit Clothing Co.) to magazine publisher (men's monthly Complex), Marc Ecko's quite the renaissance man. Add yet another notch to the culture vulture's Gucci belt; he'll also double as a game designer for Atari's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure, coming soon for PC, PlayStation 2, and Xbox. An outspoken advocate of interactive entertainment, Ecko has big plans for the industry starting with his first production, which is as much a shameless ode to graffiti as digital diversion. Here, the wannabe software whiz explains the venture's humble beginnings, and how he plans on changing the game.

GameSpy: You've got so many irons in the fire. What gives -- why games now?

Marc Ecko: Because I love gaming as an art and a medium. And I want my brand to have the capacity to do more than just sell clothing. I'm a brand marketer. Whatever product I'm making, I try to have everything I bring to the consumer share the same value.

GameSpy: Zzzz huh, what? Oh, uh -- that's great and all, but how's about we skip the rhetoric. Why should we take Getting Up more seriously than the usual celebrity crossover?

Marc Ecko: It's the real deal a labor of love. I wrote the script for this game myself about seven years ago, at a time when I was over $6 million in debt. It took me 3.5 years to finally get my business back to good -- and I kept the title in my thoughts all that time. Once things were squared away on paper, I started going around to publishers and shopping it as hard as I could. But no one was having it -- they couldn't understand why a guy who made clothes thought he had any right making games.

GameSpy: And we're to believe you know more about games than brief dalliances with Asteroids and Pong would allow?

Marc Ecko: Are you kidding? I grew up in New Jersey in the '80s! Gaming wasn't just a hobby, man! It was a lifestyle back then. I was never any good physically, so I had to go the existential route. I couldn't rock the hoop in the real life, but man I was a basketball star at Jordan vs. Bird: One on One.

GameSpy: Nice, gramps. But what do you know about today's titles?

Marc Ecko: More than you'd guess. I'll be honest -- it wasn't until PSOne dropped that I really started obsessing. But you could see how the machine's power suddenly made anything possible, thanks to games like Metal Gear Solid, Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee and Wild 9. I got seriously hooked and started absorbing tons of gaming culture, even though people thought it was nerdy at the time. I've been an addict ever since.